quill

Noun

1. The lower shaft of a feather, specifically the region lacking barbs.
2. A pen made from a feather.
3. (broadly) Any pen.
4. A sharply pointed, barbed, and easily detached needle-like structure that grows on the skin of a porcupine or hedgehog as a defense against predators.
5. A thin piece of bark, especially of cinnamon or cinchona, curled up into a tube.
6. The pen of a squid.
7. The plectrum with which musicians strike the strings of certain instruments.
8. The tube of a musical instrument.
9. Something having the form of a quill, such as the fold or plain of a ruff, or (weaving) a spindle, or spool, upon which the thread for the woof is wound in a shuttle.
10. A quill drive, having a hollow shaft with another movable shaft inside it.

Verb

1. To pierce with quills. (Usually in the passive voice, as be quilled or get quilled.)
2. (figuratively) To write.
3. To form fabric into small, rounded folds.
4. To decorate with quillwork.
5. (Canada, US, transitive) To subject (a woman who is giving birth) to the practice of quilling (blowing pepper into her nose to induce or hasten labor).

Pronounced as (IPA)

/kwɪl/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: quyl

Cognate with Middle High German: kil

In summary

From late Middle English quyl, which is first attested in the early 15th century with the meanings "fragment of reed" and "shaft of a feather", probably from Low German and Middle Low German quiele, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to pierce, stick”).
Compare Middle High German kil (“large feather, quill”), which is derived from the Low German term.

Synonyms

feather

🪶

quill pen

shaft

pen

🖊️

plume

pinion

calamus

quill feather

quill drive

plectrum

thorn

spine

writing

flight feather

fountain pen

🖋️

hand

✋

impale

muff

needle

nib

peak

pencraft

penny

pick

⛏️

pike

piton

point

prod

prong

quill-pen

rachis

roll

score

script

shot

skewer

sleeve

spike

spool

stalk

sticker

style

tab

tail feathers

tine

tip

tube

wind

writ

pierce through

Translations

pluma

🪶

calamo

plume

🪶

Feder

🪶

cálamo

Kiel

pena

Federkiel

penne

plume d’oie

πέννα

قلم

tu

Stachel

aufspulen